how basic is basic?

[Guest akira]

i've recently gotten a new mandarin teacher (a beijing native), which teaches far better than my first one by leaps and bounds. he teaches in other language/highschools in the area. Although he has no formal lesson plan we more or less follow this BCLU book "Conversational Chinese 301" that he got from a former student. i noticed even its a basic course on beginners chinese, 50% of the text is also written in chinese as well as english, whereas other language centers here would have all english text (with pinyin of course)

since i plan to go to beijing eventually to hone my mandarin but want to establish my basics here; my question is, in beijing, how basic are beginner lessons? am i expected to already start reading/writing chinese? so far my teachers have discouraged me from learning to read and write as i learn basic mandarin because im told its too overwhelming for a beginner. surfing other mandarin sites, also told me the same thing. should i study writing on my own? i asked a berlitz mandarin instructor and he told me that learning how to speak and write would depend on the teaching methods. whats the general consensus?

[trooper]

It depends how much time you can devote to your study. Learning to write the characters by heart is time-consuming. If you have plenty of time on your hands, then I don't see why not, especially since your textbook shows the pinyin you are currently using in class alongside the corresponding Chinese characters; learning how to read and write will help consolidate the vocabulary that you have studied.

[Guest Veronika]

Hello everyone, just discovered this site yesterday and avidly reading it every spare minute. It’s so helpful!

I started learning Mandarin over six years ago as a novelty, just one evening a week for almost 3 years. I already speak a few European languages and wanted a challenge.

My teacher then was a Singaporean Chinese and insisted we learn straightaway to write and read frowning on pinyin use after the first or second lesson. Overwhelming was an under statement at the time. The first few lessons made little sense but we perservered (and secretly scribbled down pinyin when she wasn’t looking). She also made the lessons fun and not all pain.

I agree, if you have little time constraint, it’s worth doing it this way because I am amazed at how much I actually remember when I see Chinese characters. I remember the characters and their pronounciation (approximately, that is, because the tones are another thing altogether!) though I cannot always remember their meaning that’s more because I haven’t done any lessons for over 3 years now. Just as with any other language, practice makes it stick.

I’ve moved to Vienna since and your website has encouraged me to seriously think of taking it up again. The other day I amazed myself when I told a Chinese restauranteur „Wo ta dien hua ming tien“ Where that came from in the dusty archives of my brain I have no idea!

Greetings to all. You are so lucky to be right there in the middle.

[confucius]

Dear Veronika:

Next time you eat at a Chinese restaurant in Vienna please ask what city the Chinese restauranteur is from. "Qingwen, nin cong Zhongguo shenme difang lai? Wenzhou ma?"

I have a hypothesis that all Chinese restauranteurs in Austria come from Zhejiang province, specifically, the city of Wenzhou. If you ask that question and add the "Wenzhou" kicker at the end then you might get lucky and win a free sweet dessert consisting of tangyuan (sweet rice dumplings with sesame filling) by amazing the astonished Chinese with your keen familiarity with Zhejiang accents. Don't worry, if they are not from Zhejiang they'll still be impressed with your clever guess.

Best wishes,

Confucius